Traditional African Pedagogical Perspectives on Ethics

Abstract

Traditional Africa takes ethics seriously as foundational to building the community. Life is generally directed in the context of the moral requirements of the community. Ethics is considered not necessarily in so far as it studies morals but moral values in themselves in relation to the methodologies for getting the values instilled in the child. The philosophy has to do with devising methodologies for inculcation of moral values. The method adopted for the study is expository, critical, analytical and synthetic. The child is strategically targeted as foundation for the ethical community since tomorrow belongs to them. This is in relation to concrete moral principles that would be support-pillars in the background. The apprehension and consolidation of these principles in lived experience make the African a sound moral person. The modern African has had more exposure than the traditional counterpart especially in matters of global geographical interactions and literary theoretical expositions in matters of ethics. Unfortunately, the outstanding ethical theories of Kantianism and Utilitarianism have failed to makeup for the values abandoned in virtue ethics. Virtue ethics defined traditional African path to morality and still promises to deliver on modern expectations if recourse is had to whatever is substantial in it. Politics, economic and policy developments may continue to fail the citizenry in terms of procuring the good life until serious effort is made to imbibe virtue ethics as informing programs of action. The ethics of care is advocated for the dialectics of child moral development. The philosophy of care is meant to resolve the imbalances in father-figure authoritarianism and the mother-figure liberalism and outright pandering to the wishes and caprices of the child most of the time. The methodologies must have succeeded where the child is so guided as to internalize for own welfare and that of the community the moral values that are amenable to the developmental needs of the African community.